Mini Blog Post 7: Problems are for Fixing
One of the most common mistakes I see people making is to notice the big problems in their life, and not do anything about it. We all have things about our life that we’d want to change, but often the most important ones are easy to see as fundamental parts of who we are. Eg: Being a perfectionist, lacking confidence, lacking friends, being uncomfortable with vulnerability, being bad at public speaking, etc. It’s easy to feel helpless in the face of a problem like this - to think that it’s not just hard to change, but impossible, not even worth trying at.
And I think this is crazy - sometimes the big problems really are impossible (or at least very hard) to shift, but I think our intuition about how hard they are to shift is really badly calibrated. And, the more important a problem is, the more worthwhile it is to invest some genuine effort into fixing it. Take a moment now to ask yourself: “what are some problems in my life? What things am I unhappy with?” and then “What have I actually tried to fix them?” And if you don’t feel satisfied with the answer, I recommend setting a 5 minute timer right now, sitting with a blank piece of paper, and brainstorming things you could try.
This mindset applies to all problems, not just the big problems, but I think there’s a particular irrationality attached to the big problems - it’s such a big deal to make progress on them, but there seems to be a widespread sense of helplessness about them. It feels like there isn’t even a question to be asked about “how can I fix this?” And these problems are often hard to fix - your first attempt will likely fail, and it can take a lot of effort. But for the big, seemingly-immutable parts of yourself that make you less happy, hold you back from the kind of person you want to be, I think it is absolutely worth it. And even for smaller problems - just practicing the skill of seeing a problem, designing solutions and actually following them is excellent practice for working on the things that really matter.
Internalising this idea - that problems in my life are things that I have the power to fix is one of the most valuable ideas I’ve ever come across. I haven’t even come close to fixing everything, but I’ve made so much more progress than I could’ve imagined ever since I started actually trying.
A few things I’ve made a surprising amount of progress on, to give a better idea of what I’m talking about:
Having friends I really value
Being open and vulnerable about things
Forming emotional connections with people
Having social skills/making small talk
Taking social initiative
Being a nicer person
Being a more adventurous person
Having a good work ethic
Having good sleep hygeine
Being organised
Being less of a perfectionist (actively a work in progress!)
These are all still a work in progress, but I consider myself to be doing far better than I was 3 years ago. And when something is a big enough problem, just making progress.
It’s all well and good to tell you that problems are solvable, but this isn’t very actionable. The kinds of solutions will depend a lot on the problem and the person, but here are some of the most powerful tools I’ve found that work on me:
Seek advice from others!
It’s really hard to spot blind spots and clever solutions from within your own head. So ask other people for their advice!
Even just explaining the problem to someone else can highlight solutions - I’m a big fan of rubber duck debugging
There’s almost certainly someone out there who’s had a similar problem and made progress on it
And even if they don’t relate to a problem, they can often help you clarify your thoughts or suggest solutions!
I recommend doing this kind of thing with a friend you trust and feel comfortable around - it can be difficult to talk about problems with people you know less well, and it can be pretty damaging if people are insensitive about it
A good hack: Ask people what they think the obvious solution is - often what someone else thinks is obvious won’t feel obvious to you!
Look for a clever hack - I find that often I can “solve” the hardest part of a problem by finding a way around it
Eg, the hardest part of good sleep hygiene for me is that it takes a lot of energy to tear myself away from things to go to bed on time. So, my current solution is that my lightbulb is set to automatically turn off at my bedtime - and this turns “get up and go to bed” from a decision, to just the natural thing to do.
Find a solution you’re excited about
It’s easy to come up with a solution that works on paper, but feels a bit icky and aversive, that you don’t really want to do anything about. It’s much better to come up with something that feels fun
For me, things that add value to other people, are a little attention-seeking, that feel fun, new and exciting work pretty well (yay blog posts)
Good mindset for finding these: Brainstorm wildly, and notice when an idea comes up that feels a bit exciting, and run with it. Build up the idea as much as possible, follow the feeling of excitement, ignore the feeling of doubt and perfectionism.
I’ve found that a creative solution that feels fun works much more often than a highly-optimised solution that doesn’t
Realise your self-image is mutable
I find a lot of my problems come from “what kind of person do I think I am” - eg, am I the kind of person who’ll start a conversation with a stranger? Who’ll go out of my comfort zone?
And I’ve found this is surprisingly changeable!
This combos extremely well with finding a fun way to do something new, and doing it enough times that it just feels normal
Giving my intuitions some new data points can be super effective at changing what feels like the natural behaviour
Be creative
Often a problem feels hard because the obvious ideas fails - but we’re almost always missing something
Often I give up after 5 seconds of being stuck, and conclude a problem is impossible. This is really, really dumb - if a problem matters to me, it’s worth a lot more time than that!
A highly effective solution for me, is to take a blank piece of paper, set a 5 minute timer, and to spend the full 5 minutes brainstorming ideas.
Don’t have any filter in place while brainstorming - just spend the 5 minutes writing down whatever pops into your head, and filter at the end
If I need to, I’ll spend the 5 minutes staring at a blank page - but every time I’ve ever done this I’ve found something - my intuitions give up far too easily
Asking other people can be a great source of creativity
Experiment!
If you have a solution idea that seems imperfect, just try it! Maybe it works, maybe it doesn’t. But either way, you’ll understand the problem better, and can design a much better second experiment
I call this gaining surface area on the problem
Relatedly: Don’t expect to succeed on your first try, and don’t search for the perfect solution. If you can solve a problem on your 5th attempt, that’s often still amazing!
Iterating is valuable, and a key part of the solution progress
Be happy with incremental progress!
For a big problem, making some progress is still awesome! Being able to spend 20% of my work time focused is amazing, when the alternative is 5%. These are hard problems
It’s easy to get scope creep over time - when you make some progress, that feels normal, and you focus on all the ground you have left.
I find it useful to set myself goals/success criteria at the start of a project like this, and to describe the current problem.
I’ve gone far past my 15 minute timer, and there are surely far more techniques and perspectives that I’ve missed. But hopefully this has given a better feel for how many different ways there are to get traction on seemingly impossible and immutable problems!
So, notice next time that you feel helpless about a problem, next time you complain about something, next time you feel guilt or something goes wrong. Ask yourself “what have I done before to try to fix this?” And then ask yourself “am I acting like this is a problem I just haven’t fixed yet? Or am I feeling helpless?”. And if the problem feels impossible, do you have enough information to really conclude that?
